“This is the most second most expensive keemun in teavivres arsenal and i think it might be the one i like least. Which, of course suits me just fine lol. The aroma of this one reminds me of...”
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“2 minute steep. Smoke on the Water (live) blasting. I’m ready. I love the dark chocolate smell of the dry leaf. The wet leaf has a good black tea scent but is slightly smoky, and I am nervous. This...”
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“I enjoy having Keemun as a breakfast tea. Even if I am naughty most of the time and miss the most important meal of the day I never forget my morning tea. Keemun is so rich and malty that it works...”
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From Teavivre

Taste: A bold but smooth, fruity taste with a lingering, mellow aftertaste

Brew: 1-2 teaspoons for 8oz of water. Brew at 194 ºF (90 ºC) for 2 to 3 minutes (exact time depends on your taste – a longer time will give the tea a stronger taste and color)

Health Benefits: Keemun black tea is fully oxidised, and so does not have the same level of antioxidants as our Green or White teas. However it still makes a great healthy tea to drink, especially if drunk with no or minimal milk and sugar, and provides a great natural source of fluoride and other vitamins.

Preparation

I haven’t been drinking much tea lately – it is hot in Texas! Was craving something different tonight though so I picked this out of my sample basket. There was a slight chocolate aroma to the dry leaves but not as prominent as in other Keemuns I’ve tried. After brewing the aroma changed to honey covered berries. I can’t exactly determine which berry, but it is definitely one of them. I liked it alright plain but I added a splash of milk. I love how milk “blooms” throughout a dark tea when you put a bit in. The taste is primarily of chocolate, honey, slight hay and a bit of smoke. Pretty good – I think I may need to have several cups of this tonight.

I was quite amazed by how this tea looks – for a moment I thought I got a 2nd grade quality but that all faded away when I steeped it and tried it. It’s amazing. Bold, rich aroma, a bit smoky. Managed to get 7 steeps out of it ranging from 30s to 3 min.

Pi day. A complex day deserves a complex sort of tea. Keemun it is! I brew up some of Teavivre’s Premium Hao Ya and see if the math checks.

The dry leaf is woodsy and earthy with a slight cocoa note, typical of many keemuns. The scent of the wet leaf is not all that much different than the dry, but slightly more gentle. The liquor smell loses some of that nice earthiness and is of a far more smoky quality.

As I sip, I’m not intrigued. I’m not mystified. I’m not overly interested. This keemun would best be described as mild-flavored, with smoke. On the initial swallow, this tea is not particularly strong. There is a somewhat malty taste on the onset with a hint of sweetness. But, the aftertaste brings a stronger wave of smokiness that makes you forget the opening. The cocoa notes are relatively weak in this one, which is a disappointment. You can faintly taste the cocoa lingering, but it never dazzles and pops. Failure to reach potential. The depth in this tea is lacking.

Overall, the math is a little off. This keemun is an average offering: neither fascinating, nor drab. Intricately deep and complex like pi, this tea is not.

Preparation

This is my favourite of the samples TeaVivre has sent me so far. The leaves are quite small, so like someone else has suggested on here, Western brewing might be the way to go.

2 tsp, 500ml, 2 mins: the taste is smokey and sweet! I couldn’t believe how much I liked it considering the smokey smell and taste. Not like the smokeyness I’ve tried in a couple pu’erhs, but a really mellow, [b]sweet[/b] smokey taste. For me this was a pleasant surprise!

Preparation

Gotta love flavorful black teas on snowy mornings… Enjoying this in the beautifully sunny aftermath of the blizzard that, mercifully, barely brushed the DC area. Just a few inches yesterday, I’ve enjoyed the luxury of pulling in and out of the driveway that I didn’t have to shovel :) Wish my folks in RI were so lucky.

Solid cup of flavor, medium bodied and round, with a lingering cocoa and slight malt. There is a distinct perfumey note that I read through everyone’s notes to pin down but somehow didn’t settle on … it nears the intensity level of a bergamot… maybe that’s what fellow Steeps are describing as floral? or cedar? The woodiness, oddly, seemed more of a flavor-texture than a flavor. There’s a fruit in there, too, will have to chase that down in future steeps.

The smokiness is phantom-like, in and out, wonderfully described by Fjellrev as “a (very distant) campfire”…just a hint of extra character.

This isn’t the most cocoa-y or chocolatey black around but they’re there to enjoy.
This provided a full 3rd finium basket steep which was a little smoother and flavor-focused on the rear sides of my tongue. Looked up the tongue-map only to learn that it has been scientifically discredited. I missed that news. But the 3rd steep definitely had tongue-localized flavor, so there you go.

1st in another round of generous samples just received from Teavire, thank you for the tea tours!

I’ve been a bit lazy with the tasting notes lately, mostly because I’ve been trying to sip down some samples that I’ve already logged. This sample came from Dexter! I’m excited to try it, as I’ve liked the other two Keemuns I’ve tried from TeaVivre (Mao Feng and Fragrant). The leaves are super tiny, but I see that a lot with this type of tea. They’re very dark in color.

Steeped, the tea smells very bready (yum) with raw oat and honey aromas. The flavor is also quite bready, which I love. I would call it a toasted slice of light-bodied whole wheat bread with just a touch of honey drizzled over. I can also taste that raw grain note that reminds me of uncooked oats. Yum!

Flavors: Baked Bread, Honey, Malt, Oats, Wheat

Preparation

A quarter of the way through WoT book thirteen (so close to splurging on tea purchases!), my kobo file went glitchy and I had to switch to my dad’s hardcover edition. It’s the worst development this series has taken so far- this 800 page behemoth has already tried to maim me twice today! Lots of respect for the people who followed this series as it was released, with the hardcover editions.

This smokey sample from Amariel made up for my failings with physical book copies today. I drank about eight cups this evening and now it’s gone. It has some rough elements (smoke, leather, bitter cocoa) , but this tea presents them in a smooth and easily drinkable way.

Flavors: Cocoa, Leather, Malt, Smoke

Preparation

That sucks about your kobo! Hardcovers are so difficult! i could NOT have read the hardcover,, but I was really disappointed they wouldn’t release the ebook utnil 3 months after the hc release. (I would have paid the hc price or equiv to have the ebook at the same time)

It’s definitely a huge time commitment. I’ve taken over a year, with lots of breaks between the slower middle books, to get to the end. It started off as a way to take my mind off ASoIaS, but I’ve come to love the series a lot. It’s going to be so weird finishing WoT..

That’s frustrating about the release dates for the different formats! It’s so nice having a 10000+ page series fully published and transportable on lightweight ebook devices- I feel spoiled XD

I’ve certainly imbibed my share of Keemun tea over the course of my life—but generally in disguise. I do not recall ever seeking out to buy Keemun, but this tea appears to be a major component in many English Breakfast blends. In fact, in memory serves, the current Harney & Son English Breakfast sachet contains only Keemun! That probably explains why the dried leaves looked and smelled so familiar to me. The leaves are quite a bit smaller than the full leaf blacks I’ve tested of late. In fact, by both looks and taste of the dark amber brew, I’d say that this tea—or reasonable facsimile—may also be the base of many a fine flavored blend.

The flavor does not immediately recall English Breakfast tea to my mind, probably because of the absence of Assam, which generally contributes the maltiness in most orthodox English Breakfast blends. (My understanding is that there is also a lot of Assamica out there—not produced in the Assam region of India, but using similar strains and growing and production techniques.) Nonetheless, by force of habit, I ended up splashing this glass with a bit of half and half, and then I felt as though I had reunited with an old friend.

I probably won’t be stocking this tea. It’s good, but it’s not new to me, and I’m focusing on broadening my horizons rather than seeking refuge in the comfort and safety of familiarity.

A good tea, though, for black tea lovers, and anyone who drinks flavored blends!